Weekend in Kumasi

I embarked on my first solo journey to Kumasi on Friday afternoon. Kumasi is the capital of the powerful Ashanti people which was the largest tribe in West Africa at one point, as well as the birthplace of Kofi Annan. It sits about four hours north of Accra, well 6 hours in typical Ghana

traffic. It is also the home of Nadia who is a student at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology or “Tech” for short. Nadia had kindly arranged two nights at a university guest house for me and offered to pick me up with the university taxi upon my arrival. I had purchased my one-way bus ticket ($8.50) the day before and was told to arrive an hour before departure. Everything seemed to be in place, which helped to calm my nerves about traveling alone.

I left World Ed’s office around 11:00 and arrived at 11:40 for my 12:30 departure. I sat down to complete a few Soduko puzzles and noticed the few announcements they gave were in the local language. It is surprising that in a country where the national language is English, the announcements weren’t made in both the local language and in English. I tried to ask a few people around me about the bus to Kumasi but no one seemed to know. At 12:25 I decided that I better walk around and find out what was happening with the bus. A late departure wouldn’t be that surprising, but I did not want to miss the bus and wait at the bus depot for several hours. Upon turning the corner of one outdoor ticket booths, I saw another bus with a group standing outside. Aha, that must be my bus. As I approached a woman yelled to me to ask me where I had been since the crowd was waiting for me to board so that they could board. I didn’t quite understand, since it wasn’t like boarding a place with lots of carry-ons, but felt terrible that I had made them all wait and that I was yelled at right at the beginning of my journey. Inside, the bus was quite nice. Comfy chairs with armrests and curtained windows. I did notice that there was no bathroom, which was a bit worrisome for such a long bus ride.

The following is a bus story from another time, but I thought it fit well here. I was on a bus not too long ago, sitting quietly along with all of the other passengers when the woman behind me exclaimed, “Did anyone lose a turtle?” No one responded, so again she yelled out, “Did anyone lose a turtle?” My Connecticut sensibilities told me that surely she must be talking about some new electronic device that the kids are all using that is nicknamed “the turtle.” I turned around to look at her and she leaned forward rather wild eyed, to say directly to me, “Did you lose a turtle?” I shook my head politely, turned back around, and decided to just be safe and tuck my feet under me. A few minutes later a few other passengers headed to the back, I guessed to inspect the turtle situation. The woman, across the row to the right of me, suddenly woke up out of a deep sleep, noticed that her plastic bag wrapped paper bag was open and jumped up. She ran to the back and swung back around with an enormous turtle. It was so big that she was using two hands to hold it as it was slowly moving its legs around. I gasped in shock as I watched the woman stuff the turtle back in the bag and knot the plastic bag around it. Thoughts of freeing the turtle and letting it out in the highway wilderness definitely crossed my mind, but anyone who transports such a large animal is a little scary and probably not to be messed with. Not surprisingly, the turtle escaped once again from its flimsy prison as soon as the women fell asleep again and the vocal woman behind me was not afraid to wake her up and let her know the situation. So, the moral of the story for me is that strange things happen anywhere, certainly not just in Africa and not just on the Fung Wah bus traveling from New York to Boston which is where I was at the time of the turtle incident. I am hoping he was being transported to a loving home in Boston to be with his other turtle friends.

OK, so back to the bus to Kumasi, actually it was a pretty quiet ride with beautiful scenery and rain. I saw rain for the first time since arriving here and it was very nice, although nicer for me sitting on the bus than the people walking outside. It was the drenching kind of rain that makes everything look very green. The trees looked beautiful, but the street sellers looked pretty miserable. I arrived around 6:15 and met Nadia with her university’s taxi. He took me over to the guesthouse where we were told that I did not have a room, because the people who were supposed to leave decided to stay an extra night. I tried not to panic knowing that something would work out. We spent about an hour in the hotel lobby and finally located a little hotel just outside of the university that had rooms for $30 a night. The room was great and the best part… it had A/C!

After settling in quickly, I went over to see Nadia’s university for a bit. We walked by a pond in the courtyard of her dorm that contained frogs croaking away. There are also clotheslines all along the walkway that students use for their laundry. Nadia said that most students wake up at 6am to wash their laundry every Saturday. The students linger in the hallways and a few were talking about the upcoming student body elections. One was trying to get my vote, if only who knew how old I really am. Nadia’s dorm room was an exercise in using a small space incredibly efficiently. There are four girls to a room with two bunk beds lining on wall. The room might have been about 6 feet by 15 with a small balcony. The students primarily cook for themselves, so the balcony contained their hotplates and microwave and all of their dishes. I met a few of the roommates and they all talked about how close they are from living in these tight quarters. As we left to grab some dinner, Nadia pointed out the “popular” girls at her school. They looked straight out of USC with skinny jeans, sunglasses on their heads and lots of gold jewelry.

Saturday was the big sightseeing day. After sweating through a breakfast that included an excellent egg sandwich and cornflakes with evaporated milk which I didn’t understand how to eat, Nadia and her friend, Ramsia, met me with the taxi. We first went to Manhyia (sort of like mentia) Palace to learn more about the Ashanti rulers and the place where they resided in the past. The palace was actually constructed by the British in 1925 potentially to ask for forgiveness for exiling the Ashanti king to the Seychelles for twenty five years. British colonial rule plays a significant part of the more recent Ashanti history. Although built by the British, the palace is much more modest than anything you would see in England. It is a beautiful wooden estate with lots of peacocks outside. The rooms are not huge, but they did contain wax figures of several of the past Ashanti kings and queen mothers. Gold is a significant part of the culture and all of the ceremonies here. Gold was once used as currency and the Ashanti flag itself, contains the colors of green, black and gold. Green represents the lush landscape; black is for the Ashanti people and gold is for the copious gold reserves. The Ashanti kind wears so much gold on his neck and hands that he actually is appointed one or two people to hold his waist so that he does not fall forward as he walks. Similarly, the battle gear for the Ashanti king consists of layers and layers of gold and metal plates that cover his head and body. I couldn’t imagine going out in the heat with so much on. It looked incredibly cumbersome. As we left, one of the peacocks opened his colorful tail feathers which was very exciting since Nadia and Ramsia had not seen peacocks before. Oh, one odd thing about all of the museums in Kumasi is that they do not allow photography. They let me take photos of the peacocks, but I couldn’t take any of the outside or inside of the museum. One of the guidebooks thought this was because the museum shop wanted to sell its own photos to tourists, but I saw only a few postcards and factory made handbags.

From Manhyia Palace, we headed over to the National Cultural Center to learn more about the Ashanti kingdom. The center contains the Prempeh II Jubilee Museum, which is home of the famous fake golden stool. The most important artifact of the Ashanti people is the golden stool which was said to descend from the sky into the hands of Okomfo Anokye. Legend proclaims that whoever sits on the golden stool is the king of the Ashanti people. It only comes out occasionally and there are very few photographs of it. The fake golden stool was produced to fool the British. Apparently the Brits took the fake one, although it almost seems hard to believe that they would fall for this since the fake golden stool is very small and unimpressive compared with the images of the real golden stool. It appeased them enough, but sadly they are still responsible for destroying much of the region during the fourth Ashanti war in the late 1800s. As we toured the museums, I noticed an interesting pattern of the docents touching all of the paintings and artifacts, even playing the antique drums. It felt like a very different museum experience, where most museums you got to now everything is behind several inches of glass or roped off so you can’t breathe on the paintings. One drum was made with leopard skin and was played with a rubbing motion as opposed to a tapping motion and it really did create the sound of a large jungle cat. After eating a little rice and fish at the culture center’s restaurant, we headed to their Art Center shop which was supposed to rival the one in Accra. I didn’t quite understand the comparison, because this was much smaller, but it was actually very pleasant to shop in. I bought a few things from the store that helps to encourage local artisans and Nadia asked me to look at a large snail figurine that she wanted to purchase as a gift for Tawiah’s father. Although it was a snail, it was a great gift – not for me, but for someone else for sure.

The final big tourist stop of the day was the Anokye Sword. The sword marks the spot where the Golden Stool descended and was placed there by Okomfo Anokye (ah-note-chay) over 300 years ago. The Ashanti people were expected to settle there and the sword is a sign of their unity and strength. The kingdom is said to collapse if anyone ever pulls the sword out. Mohamed Ali, the boxer, was encouraged to try to pull it out when he paid a visit to Ghana in the 1990s. A rival of his named Joe something, I couldn’t quite get it with the docent’s accent, insisted the he was stronger than Ali and wanted to give it a try. He too was unsuccessful. I was expecting something out of Disney’s Sword and the Stone, but perhaps over the years the Anokye Sword has increasingly been buried so that you can only see the handle. It was definitely impressive to get so close to this old artifact that contained so much meaning to the people of the region. The taxi driver joined us on this tour and he seemed to enjoy it as well. We also saw sculptures of the famous Okofo Anokye and more paintings of the recent Ashanti kings.

Kumasi’s Central Market was my final destination. It is supposedly the largest in West Africa and was described as labyrinthine. I figured with Ramsia and Nadia, I would be safe and not get lost. Since it was Saturday, the place was mobbed. Literally, it looked like people were squeezing out to get by people and get around market stands. The sight alone was a little overwhelming, so I decided I would just look at the market as opposed to entering it. We went to another calmer section and bought some fabric and soap. The produce was set up just above waist level and it looked amazing. There were millions of tomatoes, onions and various herbs. Everyone was very friendly too – not pushy or trying to get my attention. It was great, but too big to spend too much time in after the day of museum-going. For dinner that night, we had heavenly pizza and Fanta soda.

That night, after I took a running water shower, no bucket required, I was just getting into my room when the power went off. It seems to be darker here than in the US when the power goes off and I am not sure why. It was dark though, and luckily my computer happened to be on to offer a bit of light. The battery is not faring well though so I figured I had about 45 minutes of LCD light. I sat there for a while with no clothes on figuring that I would just wait for the power to come back on since I couldn’t see much anyways and the A/C was no longer working so it was going to get hot quite quickly. After a minute though, I started worrying that the hotel management might come to evacuate us. I am not sure what from, but that was the thought that motivated me to use my computer as a flashlight to find some clothes. Luckily I did because a few minutes later one of the employees came to bring me a candle. He reassured me that the lights would be on very soon. The candle was just your average tall taper candle sitting in a little candle holder. Being here makes me realize either how much Americans worry about the dangers or things or how safety conscious we are about everything. There seems to be much less worry of hurting yourself or others in this country and there is a lot more onus put on the individual to watch out for himself, whereas the American culture is perhaps so fearful of lawsuits that you have to go above and beyond to protect others. My candle seemed to be doing OK, but I didn’t want to keep it too close to the bed so it stayed in a corner. Soon the lights did come back on, but my A/C did not. I walked out to see if others were enjoying cool rooms and it seemed like they were, so I went to find the candle delivery person. He couldn’t tell me what happened, but moved me to another room which was much bigger with a huge bathroom. One interesting thing I have noticed here is that there are several types of electric outlets, three to be specific. I tend to bring the converter that I have seen the most often, but am sometimes confronted with the third outlet type for which I do not have a converter. This happened to me in the hotel room, even though it wasn’t an issue in the last room. So, I found myself with cool air, but no ability to use my computer.

The next day, I enjoyed another egg sandwich and politely refused the cornflakes. Nadia, Ramsia and a third friend saw me off to the bus depot. They waited with my stuff while I went to the ladies room. I had the choice to pay 5 cents for the urinal or 20 cents for a toilet and opted for the upgrade. I am not sure how a public women’s urinal works, but thought that since I was about to sit on the bus for the next six hours or so I might as well take the road more traveled.

I sat with a group of German volunteers who were working in the Volta region. After hearing about their various food poisoning incidents and bouts with malaria, I realized how lucky I am to be living in Accra. Also, one girl said that she eats rice and fish for lunch and dinner everyday. The only American of the group decided to end her stay early and was heading home soon. She had grown tired of being sick all the time. Really, I have been lucky, but I don’t think it is actually luck. Accra is a well developed city that has an excellent water system, at least I feel that way right now since my apartment has running water. There is a nice variety of food and people are very sensitive to hygienic cooking practices. I know it is not my unique constitution because I get sick every time I go to Mexico.

One thought I reflected on during my time on the bus was tourism in London, where I visited in January, versus here in Ghana. London is the land of museums and has a great tourist infrastructure. There are a lot of self-created tourist attractions there. I cannot say that for Kumasi or much of Ghana that I have seen so far, but I don’t mean that in a negative way. The country, and the people especially, are the tourist attraction. In some ways, that feels like a more authentic tourist attraction than a museum that houses many of the artifacts from the Ashanti people that is located on a different continent. The thought also brought up the debate about looting versus preserving artifacts from other countries. I still have not figured out my opinion on that issue. The main thing I concluded was that I never grow tired of looking out the window here in Ghana, whether I am on the bus or in World Ed’s SUV. The landscape is fascinating and often full of surprises like a vulture flying overhead or goats walking on the side of the road or women carrying tall grass in buckets above their heads. You also see a great juxtaposition of old and new with the women carrying things on their heads next to career women in power suits and street vendors selling wares in small wooden frames outside of a glass-walled, three-story grocery store.